Ann Lowe

Jackie Kennedy’s wedding dress is one of the most photographed garments in the world, yet the very hands who crafted the gown go unrecognized by many today. 

Ann Lowe was born to Janie Cole Lowe, a skilled seamstress who taught Ann Lowe how to sew at age five, in Alabama in around 1898. Ann was quick to develop a technique to create floral appliques out of the scraps of silk from her mother and grandmother’s sewing projects, which remained a signature of her’s throughout her career. 

Lowe’s mother’s death in 1914 left her the task of completing the four dresses for a New Year’s Eve ball her mother was working on. She referred to this a her “first big test in life.” She felt there was “nothing [she] couldn’t do when it came to sewing.”

In 1916, socialite Josephine Edward’s Lee encountered the fashionable Lowe and invited her to Florida to make bridal gowns and trousseau for her daughters. After much deliberation with her husband, Lowe decided to move to Florida with her son. Lee then encouraged Lowe to apply to the S.T. Taylor School of Design in New York City; however, following her admission to the school, Lowe was shunned and discriminated against by the school’s director and her classmates. She was only allowed to attend the school on the basis that she would be in a different classroom than the other white students. Her skill in the area, though, allowed her to complete the program in half the time it would usually take. 

At the time she returned to Tampa, Florida, the demand for formal attire and ball gowns was rapidly rising. As a result, she hired and trained eighteen seamstresses, and created her own brand called the Annie Cone boutique. Soon, an “Annie Cone” design became a status symbol. In 1928, she closed the Annie Cone boutique and moved to New York, operating other stores of her own there. Her stores on Madison Avenue solidified her as the first African American to have a store on the avenue. During the Great Depression, Lowe worked for other fashion houses and was thus introduced to affluent clients. One of these fashion houses, Sonia Gowns, received wide acclaim after Olivia de Havilland wore one of their gowns, designed by Ann Lowe, when she won the 1946 Academy Award for Best Actress. Lowe’s gowns were distinct in their fairy-tale, dreamy-like essence. Her works were featured in renowned magazines such as  Vogue and Vanity Fair, as well as praised by designers Christian Dior and Edith Head. 

In 1953, Lowe was commissioned for Jacqueline Kennedy’s wedding dress. About ten days before the wedding, a plumbing accident destroyed the building that housed the bridal wear and ruined both the wedding gown and ⅔ of the bridesmaid’s dresses. Lowe, without any complaints, got to work and remade all of the bridal wear on time for the wedding seamlessly. Despite her diligence and patience in the completion of the gowns, Lowe was expected to enter the wedding through the back door due to her status as a black woman. Lowe, however, refused to accept such disrespect and insisted that she enter through the front door. 

Ann Lowe’s works are identifiable through her surface embellishments, floral appliqués, and exceptional sewing work. Her contributions in paving the way for future African Americans interested in fashion design don’t go unnoticed or unappreciated.  The MET Costume Institute's fall 2023 exhibition, Women Dressing Women, will feature the works of multiple women designers, including Ann Lowe. The largest Ann Lowe exhibition to date opens September 9, 2023 through January 7, 2024 at the Winterthur Museum, featuring forty of her gowns.

In an interview with Mike Douglas, stated that her goal was to “prove that a Negro can become a major dress designer,” and she did exactly that.